Last month, the Collective Bargaining Information Services department at Alberta Jobs, Economy, and Trade published their March 2024 Bargaining Update, which contained information on recent settled collective agreements.
One such agreement was between AgeCare Seton and the health care aides, recreation aides, physiotherapy aides, and licensed practical nurses who work for them.
AgeCare Seton is a 311-bed care facility in southeast Calgary that provides long-term care, supportive living, dementia and memory care, and adult day programming.
This private, for-profit corporation owns over 30 facilities in 16 communities throughout Alberta and British Columbia.
Over 300 workers will be covered by the new collective agreement. A majority of workers employed at AgeCare Seton voted in favour of joining the Alberta Union of Public Employees back in April 2021, and this is their first contract with the employer since unionizing.
Bargaining for this contract began in August 2021, over 2.5 years ago. After the employer dragged their feet for months, negotiations finally went to mediation in December 2022, which was then bumped up to enhanced mediation the following month.
Over a year after negotiations entered mediation, the workers finally received a tentative agreement they could vote on, and a majority of the workers who did vote chose to accept the agreement.
The bargaining update includes only wage increases, so I’m unable to report on other features of the new contract, such as benefits, leave, and working conditions.
The new 4-year contract is effective retroactively to April 2021 and will expire at the end of this year. It includes a combined wage increase of 5.5%, or 5.61% when accounting for compounding increases.
Here’s how it breaks down per year:
| 27 April 2021 | 1.0% |
| 1 January 2022 | 1.0% |
| 1 January 2023 | 1.5% |
| 1 January 2024 | 2.0% |
And while 5.61% might sound like a decent wage increase, we should view this increase in context.
In April 2020, the consumer price index in Alberta was 143.0, but by the time January 2024, the month of their final wage increase, rolled around, it had jumped to 165.9.
That’s an increase of 22.9, or 16.01%.
So, during the time these workers have received a 5.61% raise, inflation has risen nearly three times that amount. And that means that these workers are worse off in terms of real wages, which are wages adjusted for inflation.
With inflation at 16.01% over the last 4 years or so, this wage increase of 5.61% ends up effectively being a wage cut of 10.4%. In other words, even after all 4 raises, these workers will be making $896 for every $1000 they were making in 2020.
To put it another way, what they used to pay $100 for in 2020 now costs them $110.40, even with the wage increases.
Because this contract expires at the end of the year, the workers’ bargaining team will barely have any sort of a break after nearly 3 years of negotiating before having to start up again for the next contract.
